New Jersey has a thing for Eggs…only this time, its Eggs that have been fertilized and that are growing into human beings:

N.J. Orders HIV Testing For Pregnant Women
Some Groups Call Law Unneeded and Intrusive

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 28, 2007; A03

NEW YORK, Dec. 27 — New Jersey this week launched one of the most ambitious efforts in the country to control mother-to-child transmission of HIV, making screening tests mandatory for all pregnant women in the state beginning next year.

A bill signed into law Wednesday by the Senate president, Richard J. Codey, in his capacity as acting governor, requires two tests for pregnant women, at the beginning of the pregnancy and again in the third trimester, unless the mother objects. If the mother objects, the objection will be noted and the newborn will then be tested for HIV, with the only exception being on religious grounds. Newborns will also be tested if the woman tests positive.

Just four other states have mandated testing for pregnant women, and three more– including New York — require screening of newborns. But New Jersey’s law appears to go further by requiring both.

The mandatory screening has raised privacy concerns. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and the state’s chapter of the National Organization for Women both questioned whether the mandated tests violate a woman’s right to privacy and the right to make her own medical decisions.

Riki E. Jacobs, executive director of the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation, a New Jersey nonprofit helping people living with AIDS, said the law is unnecessary and comes when the state should be focused on expanding care for pregnant women. “I am adamantly opposed to this bill. New Jersey already reduced the perinatal rate of transmission with mandatory counseling of pregnant women,” she said. “The issue is getting those women who are not in prenatal care in for services and testing.

“I definitely think it is an invasion of privacy,” Jacobs said. She said women choose to test their babies in 98 percent of cases, so the new law’s mandatory provisions for testing children are not needed: “The fact that we assume women won’t choose to test is ludicrous and wrong.”

But in the end, lawmakers decided that the risk of exposing children to the infection outweighed those concerns.

While men represent the majority of new HIV and AIDS cases in the United States, women now account for an increasing share, from just 8 percent of new diagnoses in 1985 to 27 percent in 2005, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Of the estimated 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States in 2005, about 300,000 were women, and the vast majority of them were between 25 and 44 years old.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among other groups, has been recommending that HIV screening become a routine part of prenatal tests. The CDC recommended HIV tests become a routine part of the battery of prenatal tests, and that there be no separate written consent required.

Mother-to-child transmission of the disease — during pregnancies and through breast-feeding — peaked in the United States in 1992, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which reported that the number of cases since then has dropped “dramatically” because of early detection and the increased use of antiretroviral therapy, which lowers the risk of transmission to less than 2 percent.

The majority of those new cases that still occur are mostly among black Americans, reflecting the changed demographic of the epidemic since it was first identified.

According to the CDC, 100 to 200 children a year are infected by their mothers. As of 2005, the last year for which figures are available, there were 6,051 people in the United States living with HIV/AIDS who had been infected perinatally — during pregnancy or breast-feeding.

Of those, 66 percent were black and 20 percent identified as Hispanic.

In New Jersey, a June report by the state’s health department reported 78 percent of those with HIV and AIDS were members of minority groups. That report also found that New Jersey has a significant female population living with the disease, 37 percent of the total.

In signing the bill at a local hospital, Codey said, “We can significantly reduce the number of infections to newborns and help break down the stigma associated with the disease.”

He added: “For newborns, early detection can be the ultimate lifesaving measure.”

New Jersey records about 115,000 births each year. While there were no recorded mother-to-child transmissions this year, as of the June report, there were two children born infected in 2006 and seven born infected in 2005, according to the health department.

[…]

Washington Post

The state has no business mandating that anyone be tested for any disease.

What we need is a simple chart that can instantly show how a law like this is wrong to even the thickest of the lowest common denominator.

Hmmmmmmm!

And of course, all these HIV testing kits need to be paid for and replenished. I smell another scam!

Whilst both Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough, both more or less polite and as close to fair minded MSM types as you are going to find in that electronic sewer were off duty, the anti-Paul machine rolled out their animatronic attack swine ‘David Shuster’ to fill in BOTH slots to attack Ron Paul in rapid succession in a most ignorant, petty, absurd, ill mannered and stupid way.

Here are the two clips in question.

Lets find out about this utter moron shall we?

David Shuster
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Shuster (born 1967) is an American journalist for NBC News and MSNBC.
He is a correspondent for Hardball with Chris Matthews and other MSNBC programs. He is based in Washington, D.C.

Early career
A native of Bloomington, Indiana, Shuster graduated with honors from the University of Michigan, and started his journalism career at CNN’s Washington, D.C. bureau. He was an assignment editor and field producer from 1990 to 1994, covering both the Persian Gulf War and the 1992 presidential election campaign. Shuster left CNN in 1994 to become a political reporter for the ABC affiliate KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas, covering the Whitewater controversy. At KATV, he won a regional Emmy Award for investigative journalism for his reporting on a manufactured housing scandal.

Tenure at Fox News
In 1996, Shuster joined the Fox News Channel in Washington, D.C., covering Bill Clinton’s involvement in the Whitewater scandal, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Starr Report, and the Clinton impeachment. He was at The Pentagon during the September 11, 2001 attacks, when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into it. After September 11, he headed Fox News’ coverage of the War in Afghanistan.[…]

Wikipedia

Hmmm, so, he worked for the scumbag FOX news channel, and according to internets, they sacked him. Too coarse for FOX? Now that is saying something.

This bastard is just the sort of religious fanatic that has brought america to its knees. Ron Paul dared to challenge the deity of one of america’s Gods, Abraham Lincoln, who all american schoolchildren are brainwashed to recite, ‘Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves’. To suggest otherwise, to say that the motivations behind the Civil war were grey and not Black and White (…I typed that!) is simply blasphemy to ‘americans’ like Shuster, and that is why that imbecile presenter addressed Dr. Paul as ‘Mr. Paul’, in a most disrespectful and childish manner, and another referred to him as a ‘crackpot’ on air, during the ‘interview’.

Most of the time the antics of FOX level journalists should be passed around as jokes, like the dribble of David Shuster, but this outburst of guided infantilism needs to be called out as such it is so flagrant and revolting in its nature.

This moron was put in place on the two shows where Ron Paul has a sympathetic response, deliberately, using all the lamest of the lame 20th century shout over the interviewee, stay away from what really matters tactics that have made the MSM the discredited thing that it is. What is so sad is that on Joe’s programme no one stood up and countered Shuster’s blatant MSM attack by simply saying, “Hold on a minute David, we are all tired of this sort of thing, lets ask some real questions instead of playing these silly games”. This is after all, the same show where the presenter refused to do a story about Paris Hilton because it was ‘not news’.

Credit where credit is due she put in a snide dig at Shuster saying there was a Paris Hilton story coming up that he could do coming up, implying that that is the level he operates at.

Ron Paul pointed out from the outset that it is totally absurd that he is now answering esoteric questions about the history of the Civil War when americans are dying in Iraq, Iran is about to be illegally attacked, troops are in Afghanistan unconstitutionally…you can’t make nonsense like this up, and yet, cretins like David Shuster try and burn Dr. Paul at the stake because of his reading of history, which is different to the pseudo religious indoctrinated drivel that him and his schoolmates have swallowed hook line and sinker.

Anyone who is reasonable, anyone who is intelligent, is able to sit quietly and consider another viewpoint. It is totally absurd to ask someone to ‘retract a statement’ just because it is slightly different to the opinion of others. This is precisely what religious inquisitors used to do when they were torturing heretics; they would ask them over and over to recant, and return to the faith. This is what Shuster did, with a most objectionable tone of voice and manner ill suited to serious discussion at a time when america needs to look very carefully and logically at itself in this pivotal moment in its history.

Once again, types like Shuster (and they are a type to be sure) are what makes america a dangerous place. Thankfully, Dr. Paul is and was able to make his points beautifully and show Shuster for what he really is, a pathetic, uneducated dimwit, without imagination, manners and the ability to think himself out of a wet paper bag.

I hope that Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough apologize for the insults this bad man heaped on Dr. Paul when they return to work. Not that they need to, because types like Shuster are naked examples of operation mockingbird ‘journalists’ sent out to attack, disinform, lie through their teeth and disrupt.

Every word of Shuster’s shambling and amateurish attacks expose him as an errand boy…

But is any of this important any more?

Once again, people are talking about the antics of MSM and not the facts about the emergency facing us. Of course on BLOGDIAL, all we do is talk facts, logic and relevant ‘how tos’ so we have built up enough credit to allow us to digress and let loose on these animals once in a while.In any case, no one except the educationally sub normal, is buying into the lies of MSM. Everyone is turning to internets for their news and opinion and clear thinking; does it matter that human garbage like Shuster attack Ron Paul in this way?

It matters in that the Mockingbird system is being pushed into high gear, and that this is a sign that Ron Paul is seen as a real threat. If they are thinking in this way and pushing the pawns like Shuster along the board, you can be sure that they are acting in other ways to try and undermine and deflect away from the message of The Revolution. The Tim Russert ‘interview’ showed how deep they are wiling to dig to try and discredit Dr. Paul – they have gone through everything he has ever said, trying to pull out everything that looks odd, ‘controversial’ or that is not part of the american religious doctrine, like the worship of Lincoln. This is all they can do, because they cannot find any pictures of him sitting on a boat named monkey business with a blond on his lap.

At the end of the day, MSM still doesn’t matter, and neither do its human slugs on leashes like David Shuster. As long as people use the internets to talk to each other, to discredit MSM and to spread correct information, to keep everyone on topic, not only will the circuits of MSM be disrupted, but truth will propagate exponentially, and the louder the Shuster types shout, the more absurd and on the wrong side of history (my favorite phrase of the moment) they will rightly appear to be. We will win. We will continue to win.

What follows is the most important fact of all.

The fact that they are creating a purpose built single function Anti-Paul machine means that they actually fear the potential of a popular revolution in America, one that can completely reverse everything they have done so far to dismantle America. They understand, more than anyone, that the true power of that country rests in its population, and once that population reaches critical mass of opposition, there will be nothing they can do to stop it. This is what happened in the ‘Satellite States’ of the Soviet Union. This is what happened with People Power in the Philippines. America is no different from those countries, and if the informational tipping point is reached with the message that Ron Paul is carrying, then nothing will be able to stop him or someone identical to him from becoming president, and once that happens, the congress will be swept clean and the real America will start to re-emerge as the police state infrastructure is dismantled bit by bit.

I say it can and must happen.

Think about it:

• A bearded man who lives in a secret remote location. Everyone knows where he lives, but no one can get to him.
• NORAD can track him. But they cant track him down.
• He has a legion of helpers that help him deliver ‘presents’ to everyone everywhere by magic. He can deliver presents to all good citizens in one night. He can blow up a building that was not hit by a plane in one day, without the weeks needed to rig it for controlled implosion.
• He is believed in by people with child like minds as a result of lies told by people who know how the world really works.
• Despite living in a remote place, he knows everything about everyone.
• You can write letters to him, and somehow, they will be delivered. Somehow, letters from him are delivered to millions by the internets.
• People who grow up stop believing in him, and then buy their own presents for themselves and their loved ones.

Now, let us find out what it’s REALLY about:

Bin Laden: Should Governments Perpetuate the Bin Laden Myth?
Austin Cline,

Problems with the Bin Laden Myth:
Although Bin Laden was originally based upon the figure of Old Nick, a patron saint of big government, today Bin Laden is wholly secular. Some people object to him because he is secular rather than religious; some non-religious object to him because of his religious roots. He is a powerful cultural symbol which is impossible to ignore, but this doesn’t mean that he should simply be accepted without question. There are good reasons to dispense with the tradition.

Governments Have to Lie About Bin Laden:
Perhaps the most serious objection to perpetuating belief in Bin Laden among citizens is also the simplest: in order to do so, Governments have to lie to their citizens. You can’t encourage the belief without dishonesty, and it’s not a “little white lie” that is for their own good or that might protect them from harm. Governments should not persistently lie to citizens without overwhelmingly good reasons, so this puts supporters of the Bin Laden myth on the defensive.

Governments’ Lies About Bin Laden Have to Grow:
In order to get kids to believe in Bin Laden, it’s not enough to commit a couple of simple lies and move on. As with any lie, it’s necessary to construct more and more elaborate lies and defenses as time passes. Skeptical questions about Osama must be met with detailed lies about Osama’s powers. “Evidence” of Bin Laden must be created once mere stories of Osama prove insufficient. It’s unethical for Governments to perpetuate elaborate deceptions on citizens unless it’s for a greater good.

Bin Laden Lies Discourage Healthy Skepticism:
Most citizens eventually become skeptical about Bin Laden and ask questions about him, for example how he could possibly travel around the whole world in such a short period of time. Instead of encouraging this skepticism and helping citizens come to a reasonable conclusion about whether Bin Laden is even possible, much less real, most Governments discourage skepticism by telling tales about Osama’s supernatural powers.

The Reward & Punishment System of Bin Laden is Unjust:
There are a number of aspects to the whole Bin Laden “system” which citizens shouldn’t learn to internalize. It implies that the whole person can be judged as naughty or nice based upon a few acts. It requires belief that someone is constantly watching you, no matter what you are doing. It is based upon the premise that one should do good for the sake of reward and avoid doing wrong out of fear of punishment. It allows Governments to try to control citizens via a powerful stranger.

The Bin Laden Myth Promotes Anti-Libertarianism:
The entire Bin Laden myth is based on the idea of citizens giving up liberty for safety. There’s nothing wrong with staying safe, but Bin Laden makes it the focus on the entire life of the citizen. Citizens are encouraged to conform their behavior to Governmental expectations in order to receive ever more guarantees of safety rather than keeping their liberty. In order to make Terror watch lists, Government pays close attention to what informers tell them their neighbors are doing, effectively encouraging an unbridled STASI style informer based police state.

Bin Laden is Too Similar to Jesus and God:
The parallels between Bin Laden and Jesus or God are numerous. Bin Laden is a nearly all-powerful, supernatural person who dispenses rewards and punishment to people all over the world based upon whether they adhere to a pre-defined code of conduct. His existence is implausible or impossible, but faith is expected if one is to receive the rewards of safety. Believers should regard this as blasphemous; non-believers shouldn’t want their kids prepared in this way to adopt the police state and the loss of their civil liberties.

The Bin Laden “Tradition” is Relatively Recent:
Some might think that because Bin Laden is such an old tradition, this alone is sufficient reason to continue it. They were taught to believe in Osama as citizens, so why not pass this along to their own? The role of Bin Laden and false flag terrorism in modern life is actually quite recent — the mid to late 20th century. The importance of Bin Laden is a creation of cultural elites and perpetuated by business interests and simple cultural momentum. It has little to no inherent value.

Bin Laden is More About Governments than citizens:
Governmental investment in Bin Laden is far larger than anything citizens do, suggesting that Governments’ defense of the Bin Laden myth is more about what they want than about what people want. Their own memories about enjoying freedom may be heavily influenced by cultural assumptions about what they should have experienced. Is it not possible that kids would find at least as much pleasure in knowing that Governments are responsible for terrorism, not a supernatural stranger?

The Future of Bin Laden:
Bin Laden symbolizes terrorism and perhaps the entire ‘war on terror’ like nothing else. An argument can be made for the importance of the CCTV camera as a symbol for safety (notice that there are no reduction in crimes from them), but Bin Laden personifies terror in a way that groups cannot. Bin Laden is, furthermore, a very secular character by now which allows him to cross cultural and religious lines, placing him in an important position for the entire world rather than for Christians alone.

Because of this, it’s plausible that giving up on Bin Laden will mean abandoning much of the ‘war on terror’ altogether — and perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. There’s a lot to be said for people dismissing the anti freedom, militarized police state of modern America and focusing instead on the freedoms of the Constitution. Ignoring Bin Laden would symbolize this choice. There’s a lot to be said for adherents of other religions refusing to allow Bin Laden to become part of their own traditions, representing an intrusion of Western culture into their own.

Finally, there’s also a lot to be said for nonbelievers of various sorts — humanists, atheists, skeptics, and freethinkers — refusing to be co-opted into a religious obedience. Whether Bin Laden in particular or the ‘war on terror’ in general is treated as defined by government or religious traditions, neither are religions which nonbelievers are part of. Government has strong secular elements, but those are primarily commercial — and who is going to invest themselves in a holiday all about commerce and who can spend the most money on credit?

The future of Bin Laden will depend on whether people will care enough to do anything — if not, things will continue on the same course they have been on. If people care not to be taken over, borg-like, by America’s ‘war on terror’, resistance may reduce Osama’s status as a cultural icon.

[…]

http://atheism.about.com/od/christmasholidayseason/p/SantaMyth.htm

Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act of 2007 or SAVE Act of 2007, among many things, amends the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to make the basic employment eligibility confirmation pilot program permanent; sets forth conditions for the mandatory use of the E-verify system; and requires: (1) employer/employee notification of social security number mismatches and multiple uses, and related information sharing with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and (2) establishment of electronic birth and death registration systems.

The Act’s stated purpose is to coordinate with states to establish a common data set and common data exchange protocol for electronic birth registration systems and death registration systems requirements, and for such systems to align with a national model. Sound familiar? Like the Real ID Act, the SAVE Act would impose federal standards on states for what was heretofore a state program.

Three active federal bills contain the SAVE Act of 2007:
H.R.4088 12/5/2007 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities.

S.2366 11/15/2007 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.

S.2368 11/15/2007 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

H.R. 4088, SEC. 203 reads:

ESTABLISHMENT OF ELECTRONIC BIRTH AND DEATH REGISTRATION SYSTEMS.
(a) In consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Commissioner of Social Security, the Secretary shall take the following actions:
(1) Work with the States to establish a common data set and common data exchange protocol for electronic birth registration systems and death registration systems.

(2) Coordinate requirements for such systems to align with a national model.

(3) Ensure that fraud prevention is built into the design of electronic vital registration systems in the collection of vital event data, the issuance of birth certificates, and the exchange of data among government agencies.

(4) Ensure that electronic systems for issuing birth certificates, in the form of printed abstracts of birth records or digitized images, employ a common format of the certified copy, so that those requiring such documents can quickly confirm their validity.

(5) Establish uniform field requirements for State birth registries.

(6) Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, establish a process with the Department of Defense that will result in the sharing of data, with the States and the Social Security Administration, regarding deaths of United States military personnel and the birth and death of their dependents.

(7) Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, establish a process with the Department of State to improve registration, notification, and the sharing of data with the States and the Social Security Administration, regarding births and deaths of United States citizens abroad.

(8) Not later than 3 years after the date of establishment of databases provided for under this section, require States to record and retain electronic records of pertinent identification information collected from requestors who are not the registrants.

(9) Not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, submit to Congress a report on whether there is a need for Federal laws to address penalties for fraud and misuse of vital records and whether violations are sufficiently enforced.

[…]

http://papersplease.org/wp/

Thank heavens.

Now maybe liars in search of a cause like ‘creator of teh internets‘ Al Gore, and the pig ignorant ‘no more thought’ Sheryl Crow and her ilk will pipe down the bullshit.

Or maybe not; it will only be when the press start to ask them proper questions that they cannot answer (or when their bs is trashed off camera by scientists embarrassing them into a little curled up mess) that they will realize that the jig is up and they had better put up or shut up but either way sod off with their hysterical anti-human, anti-science religious nonsense which is on the verge of becoming a major embuggerance thanks to the nincompoops at the UN and their legislative boosters.

If I may add to Georgia Clifton’s Open Letter to Home Schooling Parents on Behalf of Ron Paul:

When the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), an organization of which I am a lifetime member, announced this past summer that they were endorsing Mike Huckabee’s candidacy for President, I had barely heard of Mike Huckabee and decided to do some research and learn about this candidate. As Christians, it is our duty to judge not according to appearance (or words), but to judge righteous judgment. When making weighty decisions such as who will become our next leader, we need to evaluate our choices carefully. My desire is to lay out the facts that I found concerning Mike Huckabee and ask that you receive them with an open spirit of discernment. I will conclude by presenting you with a powerful alternative that you should prayerfully consider.

Why did the HSLDA endorse Huckabee?
In endorsing Huckabee, the HSLDA said that he is:

1) “a principled conservative”
2) “a friend of homeschooling”
3) “a man of character”
4) “a man with a mature faith in Jesus Christ.”

These are the four reasons the HSLDA gave for supporting Mike Huckabee. Incidentally, this was the actual order in which they gave them. Let’s examine each one, in order of my own priorities:

A man with a mature faith in Jesus Christ?
It’s easy to make this claim, but it’s difficult to speak against it, so I won’t. The only way to know with certainty whether a brother has a “mature faith in Jesus Christ” is not to listen to their words, nor to even look at their actions, but to examine their fruit. Along this line, I would ask why Huckabee’s son David was accused of hanging a dog, slitting its throat and then stoning it to death?

[…]

Putting aside for a moment his irreverent attitude, consider this: he was presented with an opportunity to show us just how strong his faith is in the Scriptures and ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ, but he floundered. He then pointed out that he was the only one on that stage with a theological degree. I would remind all of us that Jesus warned us to “beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” This is the same man who took a pretend phone call from God. Blasphemous sacrilege!

[…]

A friend of homeschooling?
I count myself blessed to have known the beauty of loyalty in friendship. The word friend is a powerful word and brings to mind words like “loyalty,” “defense,” and “familiarity.” A friend stands by you through thick and thin and makes sacrifices for you when necessary. It may surprise you, then, that the New Hampshire NEA has also endorsed Huckabee. The NEA is the largest labor union in the United States and represents public school teachers. How can Mike Huckabee be loyal to both homeschoolers and the powerful public school lobby? The answer is: he can’t. Whoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God, and whoever is the friend of the public school union is the enemy of homeschoolers. This may explain why his “Issues: Education” webpage has only one brief and token sentence mentioning homeschooling. It may also explain why he defends the No Child Left Behind Act.

Where are Huckabee’s loyalties? Well, one morning in 1999, homeschoolers in Arkansas woke up to learn that they had been betrayed by their governor and friend, Mike Huckabee. The HSLDA had reported that under Gov. Huckabee, Arkansas became the first state in the nation to add restrictions to its existing home school law. From the report linked above, Huckabee signed the bill that the HSLDA specifically did not support. Can you call this man who signed legislation taking away our homeschooling freedoms a friend? Only if you are the NEA. Why did they pass this law? According to the HSLDA, the “public school lobby had been working overtime to convince the Arkansas legislature that the home school law was too permissive.” Rather than stand up against the powerful public school lobby, Huckabee caved in and took away freedoms that were previously given to homeschoolers. As the Psalmist wrote, “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.”

[…]

A man of character?
Where do I begin? I believe a man is only as good as his word, and when someone lies to me, I find it difficult to ever have that trust restored. I take lying very seriously. Mike Huckabee has been caught telling and repeating an outright falsehood. Read carefully this webpage that details how he got caught in this pretty blatant lie. How can you trust a man’s character when he is caught lying red-handed? Someone who tells lies is a liar, and that makes Mike Huckabee a liar. Why did the Arkansas Ethics Commission officially reprimand him for violations five times in 14 years?

What do his peers in Christianity say? The conservative “700 Club” has disowned him. What is his reputation like among those outside the church? He is known as someone who has “a mean streak, a thin skin and a penchant for revenge.” Huckabee is a member of a music band called “Capitol Offense.” Would Jesus form a band? If he did, would he name it something like that? According to the band’s website, they formed it because of their “love of … classic rock-n-roll.” Where is the gravity and sobriety that Titus chapter 2 calls for in an older man? It’s not a gospel music band, either. It is a cover band with a set list including songs such as “Born to be wild,” the highly sexually charged “Devil with a Blue Dress,” “Freebird, “Honky Tonk Woman, and other similarly ungodly songs. Go read the lyrics to Honky Tonk Woman (it’s offensive) and imagine the pastor of your church singing that song. If a leader in my church formed a band to play that kind of music, I would call that a very serious problem. And we call him a man of character? On the campaign trail and in debates, Huckabee frequently makes mention of his theological training and his status as an ordained minister. Jesus told us to beware of hypocrites who stand in street corners [feigning spirituality] wanting to be seen of men. We are told to go into our closet and close the door when we pray, so the Father can see us in secret. Why is Huckabee so vocal about his faith and his theological ordination? The only reason I can think of is that he’s doing it for political gains.

[…]

A principled conservative?
Huckabee’s history of pardoning violent felons with disastrous outcomes has been a major problem for his campaign. On immigration, he is a flip-flopper. As Arkansas’s governor, Huckabee supported in-state college tuition for young illegal immigrants, but recently, presumably for political expediency, has completely reversed his position. How about taxes? By the end of his ten-year tenure as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee was responsible for a 37% higher sales tax, 16% higher motor fuel taxes, and 103% higher cigarette taxes, according to Americans for Tax Reform. Check out the infamous video of Governor Huckabee practically begging for any new tax.

What about pro-life issues? When asked about embryonic stem cell research, he said, “I don’t think it’s right to create a life to end a life.” So far, so good, but then he added, “That’s not a good health decision.” What on earth does that mean? He was later asked, “As president, you would seek to ban abortion?” and his response was that “I would seek always to promote the view that life is precious and should be protected. But I think it has to be won on a battlefield of one heart at a time rather than pieces of legislation at a time.” He clearly does not have a clear plan to stop or at least slow abortion.

I’m convinced, but what choice do we have? He’s the best candidate we have!
For this, I only need refer you to our brother, Dr. Ron Paul. For the sake of careful discernment, please look at Ron Paul with a fresh and unbiased eye. Ron Paul is a humble brother in Christ with a blameless record. His enemies have no ammunition against him, and his voting record as a 10-term congressman is consistent. He is a man who has proven himself to be trusted with the power he has been given. As an OB/GYN, he has delivered over 4,000 babies. He has been married for 50 years and has 5 children, 18 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild. He is passionately pro-life and successfully defends that view against liberal pro-deathers. He has a plan to end abortion, starting with overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the decision to the local level where it will be handled by local leaders who must answer to their local voters.

His platform is strictly constitutionalist. His principle is that if the Constitution doesn’t specifically allow it, then the Federal government has no business doing it. He wants to abolish entirely the Department of Education, as well as many other massive unconstitutional government bureaucracies, and replace them with nothing. The beautiful thing is that we can trust him to actually do what he promises. He often repeats the mantra that he wants to “keep the government out of our lives.” As homeschoolers who want to raise our children ourselves, this should be music to our ears.

[…]

Is Ron Paul a friend of homeschoolers?
Ron Paul is the only candidate who has an entire microsite devoted specifically to the issue of homeschooling. According to Ron Paul, “The best way to improve education is to return control to the parents who know best what their children need. Congress should empower all parents, including home-schoolers, to control their children’s education…” Ron Paul also believes that “No nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than the family.” Amen! Back in the year 2001, Dr. Paul said, “Under the United States Constitution, the federal government has no authority to hold states ‘accountable’ for their education performance. In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable by parents, not federal bureaucrats.” Virginia Baker, a national pioneer of present-day home schooling, and the first mother in Texas to do so, has formally endorsed Dr. Ron Paul. She said, “Dr. Paul is the homeschoolers best friend.”

A friend is someone who will loyally defend you, even to the point of sacrifice, and I personally trust ONLY Ron Paul in this area. There is no candidate that can be trusted to protect the rights of parents to direct their own children’s upbringing and education, except for Ron Paul. Jim Fedako, economist and homeschooling father of five wrote, “As a homeschooling father of five, I recognize that there are many individuals and groups who would like to force my children back into the public schools. In fact, the NEA has a statement on their legislative platform that advocates the end of the homeschooling movement. Ron Paul stands for Liberty. He stands for the right of my wife and I to educate our children at home, away from the influences of the NEA and other such organizations.” Ron Paul isn’t swayed by powerful lobbies. He never accepts bribes or gifts, and votes his conscience regardless of how unpopular it makes him. Ron Paul often finds himself casting the only “No” vote on bills before Congress that he sees as unconstitutional. In the face of what must be unimaginable intimidation, Dr. Paul stays true to what he believes. There are literally hundreds of other reasons to support Ron Paul’s candidacy, and I would encourage you to begin at Ron Paul’s website.

But the media keeps saying that he can’t win! I don’t want to waste my vote.
What right does the media have in telling us who can and can’t win an election? Can they see the future? Or do they have information that is not generally available to the public? What is their track record in correctly predicting the outcome of elections? The truth is, Ron Paul dominates in straw polls, and he has raised many millions of dollars from tens of thousands of personal donations. He has an excellent chance of winning, despite what you may have been told. I would say that to simply vote the way the media tells you to vote is the only way to waste your vote. Vote for who you believe is the best candidate, regardless of who you are told is winning. Please, for the sake of our future liberty as homeschooling families, give this serious thought, discernment, and prayer. Should you choose to support Ron Paul, please pray for him, his family, and his candidacy. Support him financially, and tell other homeschooling families about this champion of our liberty.

[…]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/whitinger1.html

???!!!

Shocking!

TOKYO (Reuters) – Yes, UFOs do exist, Japan’s top government spokesman said on Tuesday.

The comment by chief cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura drew laughter from reporters at his regular briefing on government policy.

Earlier the cabinet, responding to an opposition lawmaker’s question, issued a statement saying it could not confirm any cases of unidentified flying objects.

“This is an issue that the nation is interested in — it is a defence issue and a confirmation operation needs to take place,” Ryuji Yamane, a lawmaker from the main opposition Democratic Party who submitted the question to the cabinet, told Reuters.

“But the government does not even try to collect information necessary for the confirmation.”

Machimura, asked about the government’s view on UFOs at a regular press conference, told reporters that the government can only offer a stereotyped response.

“Personally, I definitely believe they exist,” he said, apparently tongue in cheek.

But the prime minister stuck to the official view.

“I have yet to confirm (that UFOs exist),” Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters later in the day.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota and George Nishiyama, Editing by Michael Watson)

[…]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKT37017220071218

In a country where ‘face’ is central to the identity of the individual, being publicly laughed at by brain dead robot journalists must have hurt.

Nobutaka Machimura however, will be vindicated. He will stand with the other great men of history and reason who made statements like, “The Earth is round”, and, “The Earth orbits around the Sun, not the Sun around the Earth”.

As for the journalists who laughed out loud at this intelligent man, well, they are on the wrong side of history.

UFOs are a matter of National Defense interest. Ex members of the French government say so, and so does everyone else with even the slightest bit of knowledge about this subject, which sadly, (or maybe not sadly) most people haven’t got even the first clue.

Bring on the ridicule in the form of Santa Claus jokes. No matter what anyone says, UFO’s are REAL and there are no two ways about it.

UPDATE!

Note how BBQ propagandists spin this story:

[…]

Earlier, in response to a question from an opposition lawmaker, the Japanese government issued a statement saying it could not confirm any cases of UFOs.

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura later told reporters he believed they were “definitely” real.

It is the sort of question politicians dread but, under Japanese rules, are unable to ignore.

A member of the opposition asked the government what its policy was to deal with UFOs.

He said work should begin urgently to try to confirm whether or not they exist because of what he called “incessant” reports of sightings.

[…]

Seems ok doesn’t it? it is true that the reports of UFOs are constant; incessant is a good way to describe the frequency, and we are not talking about reports of sundogs, as this lame ass pathetic moron does by inference in this absurd article.

[…]
Most alerts turned out to be birds or other objects.
[…]

This is lie speak.

If there were one million bad reports and only one genuine report of a UFO that could be explained in no other terms other than an alien space craft, then the case is proven. It is completely irrelevant that there are many misidentifications; what IS relevant are the many extraordinarily high quality cases that are on the record. Any good journalist with a working brain would know this.

One of the best documented cases was a JAL (Japan Air Lines) pilots report which is a very high quality report. That line is just a propaganda style lie.

[…]
Perhaps with his tongue a little in his cheek he insisted that he believed UFOs did “definitely” exist.
[…]

Or perhaps not? We can never be sure with any report that comes from BBQ!

and here comes the prejudicial final punch:

[…]
Questioned about the existence of alien spaceships, Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda thought about it and then answered carefully.

He said he had “not yet confirmed” whether they existed.

The conspiracy theorists will note that the answer was not a “no”.

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7150156.stm

Whenever BBQ or any mainstream media outlet wants to demonize and discredit a person, they pull out the phrase ‘conspiracy theorist’ and when they want to discredit or trash an idea, they use the phrase ‘conspiracy theory’.

Neither of these applies to the subject of UFOs. Only a fool believes in UFOs; rational people come to the understanding that some UFOs can only be explained as the space craft of alien beings visiting Earth.

These ideas however, are far too subtle for the likes of ‘Chris Hogg’ who it appears, cannot even use the Googles.

What amazes me is that someone somewhere in BBQ thinks it necessary to derail and control information and the thinking about UFOs. But then again, it isn’t too surprising is it?

Or is that a conspiracy theory?!

German communist in hot water after dining out on lobster

By the time she had realised her mistake – that as one of Germany’s top communists she should probably not be seen eating lobster – it was too late.There was no time to switch from the €22 (£16) “rich man’s dish” to a more modest platter of kippers, because Sahra Wagenknecht had already been caught on camera in the act of betraying her own political ideals.

£16 for lobster! That’s a pretty cheap restaurant… or it’s selling that awful North American ‘lobster’. Which maybe explains why she didn’t want to be seen eating it.

Anyway, I can find no diktat by Marx or Engels stating that no communist shall eat lobster. So how is this woman “betraying her own political ideals”? Should all communists wear hair shirts and practise self-flagellation? This woman is an MEP, part of the gravy train on a basic salary of 7000 euros per month. Look at her website, she wears designer clothes and has an expensive haircut (apparently to mimic Rosa Luxemburg). It’s all just image management, as pointed out…

These are sensitive times, with studies showing that inequality in Germany is growing. Shows of wealth by politicians and reports of hefty bonuses for managers regularly make for negative headlines.

So it’s OK to earn 84,000 euros p.a., but not to eat a cheap lobster in public.

“I don’t do anything that I say others shouldn’t do,” she told the daily TAZ. “On the contrary, I’m fighting for a society in which everyone can afford to eat lobster.”

Bravo! Let them eat lobster!

Anyway, this reminded me that over the weekend I saw 4 or 5 people from YAFA demonstrating outside a restaurant in York to stop the sale of foie gras. York City Council, bleatingly led by this vegevangelist passed a motion discouraging the sale of foie gras in the city. With no power to ban any sale, the coucil has banned foie gras on its own premises.

I would have stopped to talk to them, but was laughing too heartily to speak. I like foie gras, and don’t want some lily-livered nincompoop who has most likely never tased the delicious incomparable richness of a good foie gras stopping me from eating it should I choose to do so.

These campaigns have already robbed us of freely available veal – although where we would get milk from if we didn’t take calves away from their mothers I don’t know. (And lamb, of course, is no problem, is it?). There appears to be selective moralising going on – when was the last time you saw anyone protesting about battery chickens, of which there are over 20 million in the UK, requiring the slaughter of 20-30 million cock chicks? Not sexy enough… or too ‘old school’ vegan, perhaps?

Paul Blanchard is “Managing Partner of the PR and marketing company Right Angles.”

Paul, some advice.

I said before that any call for a White Paper or Public Inquiry is totally insane, and anyone who calls for one is delusional. As we have now seen, there has been a report that does nothing to stop the ID / centralized database juggernaut:

The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) believes that the Government’s response to the interim Poynter report shows that they just don’t understand what has gone wrong. Their refusal to abandon the headlong rush towards Transformational Government — the enormous centralised databases being built to regulate every walk of life — is not just pig-headed but profoundly mistaken.

Both Alasdair Darling, commenting on the HMRC fiasco, and Ruth Kelly, telling the House about the loss of 3 million people’s personal information, told us that once `lessons have been learned’ and `procedures tightened’ the march to ever-larger database systems will continue.

Before Transformational Government came along, only small amounts of data were lost — but as the new databases cover the whole population, everyone’s affected now, not just a few unlucky people.

Transformational Government means putting all of the eggs into one basket and it is creating:

• The multi-billion pound identity card scheme, to hold data on the whole population
• The National Health spine, which will make everyone’s health records available for browsing by a million NHS workers
• ContactPoint which will record details on every child in England, with details of their parents, carers and indicators of whether they have any contact with social services. Three hundred thousand people can look that information up.
• A universal pensioner’s bus pass scheme which will hold the data on 17 million people, and in principle will let any bus driver learn your age and address — when all that it should record is an entitlement to free travel.

Ross Anderson, Chair of FIPR and Professor of Security Engineering at the University of Cambridge said, “the Government believes that you can build secure databases and let hundreds of thousands of people access them. This is nonsense — we just don’t know how to build such systems and perhaps we never will. The correct way to design such systems is to localise the data, in a school, in your local GP practice. That way when there is a compromise because of a technical failure or a dishonest user then the damage is limited.

“You can have security, or functionality, or scale — you can even have any two of these. But you can’t have all three, and the Government will eventually be forced to admit this. In the meantime, billions of pounds are being wasted on gigantic systems projects that usually don’t work, and that place citizens’ privacy and safety at risk when they do.”

Richard Clayton, FIPR Treasuer said, “Personal data ought to be handled as if it were little pellets of plutonium — kept in secure containers, handled as seldom as possible, and escorted whenever it has to travel. Should it get out into the environment it will be a danger for years to come. Putting it into one huge pile is really asking for trouble. The Government needs to completely rethink its approach and abandon its Transformational Government disaster.”

[…]

http://www.fipr.org/

The reason why no White Paper or report is going to stop any of this is that BILLIONS of pounds in contracts have been handed out to the friends and family of ministers and none of them are willing to stab their friends and family in the back.

It doesn’t matter what any report or paper says, they will push this until either the people revolt or the people give in. That is why anyone calling for reason is a fool. That is why anyone depending on the processes of democracy is delusional. The only thing that is going to stop all of this is an explosion of the type we saw with the poll tax, or some other similar mass revolt that cannot be ignored.

We all know what sort of shape they can take and marching is not one of them.

But you know this!

I’m stuck in bed with a vomiting bug…. yes, you’re glad you’re not here. Surfing… searched the Blarchive (for what, I no longer remember) with keyword ‘simple’. Got this result about the life of a research scientist… In the end, I got a grant for £250K, but, 4 years later, this post only needs a few simple substitutions:

My contract is up in [March]. And I am sick and tired of the method of employment for researchers. I’m [older now], a good record, [9] years of post-doctoral experience, and there is almost zero chance of getting a permanent job in basic research. It shouldn’t be this way. I am expected to write grants to provide another 2 or 3 years of funding, after which I am expected to write grants to provide another 2 or 3 years of funding, after which… There is no observed value of basic research by the public, and the government know we have no choice but to put up with the system as it stands simply because they will not provide backing for permanent jobs. In fact, they are being cut.

It depresses me, truly it does, and not just on a personal level. It is exploitation of the nature of scientists (those who I work with, at any rate); we want to do science, we want to do good science very very much, it is in our hearts. And it is this ‘weakness’ that means we can be exploited.

So. I am fed up with it. I need some security, or at least a sense of worth, some feeling of support by those that hold the readies. And these things are lacking – note the substantial reliance of British science on charitable donations. This is not The Way It Should Be.

La plus ca change… n’est pas?

Anyway, I just read the entire Blarchive page and it cheered me up, took my mind off my stomach for a while, brought a glow to my sallow cheeks.

Merry Christmas, Blogdialians! (Once a blogdialian…)

The extra serendipity, the Blarchive page encompasses today’s date!

And finally… peace and love to all Blogdialians. Your wisdom is still working its magic.

Da BAWMB the Bass .. … … Diarrhoea and Vomiting Bug Powder Dust

snarfed from here.

BBQ is at it yet again, with another ‘story’ by a ‘professional lying paid pro-id scumbag’ using PR scripted false logic to prop up the dying and decomposing corpse of the ID card scheme:

ID sites ‘aid underage drinkers’
By Chris Page
BBC Radio Five Live Report

Underage drinkers are making use of websites which churn out false driving documents and proof-of-age cards for as little as £10 each, the BBC has found.

Oh really? The BBC has ‘found’ this?

A simple search reveals a huge number of websites selling “100% convincing” fake IDs “guaranteed to fool anyone”.

And these printers have the absolute right to print whatever they like, and they have the absolute right to sell it to whomever they like. You, on the other hand, have no moral right to steal money from license payers and then publish propaganda on the behalf of PR companies and the government.

The sites carry legal disclaimers stating the cards are “novelty” products, not copies of official IDs. But youth workers told Radio Five Live Report they believe the cards are being marketed to underage drinkers.

That is a lie. ‘Fake’ IDs have been commercially available for decades all over the world. They exist for a reason and as a direct consequence of the insane and illiberal laws that try and micro manage everyone’s lives.

The very idea that there can be a ‘fake’ id is fallacious. There are many false assumptions wrapped up in the phrase ‘fake id’; the first is that a card can contain or represent your identity, that is false. Secondly there is the false idea that only an authority like the government can issue a ‘real’ ID and that all other issuers are somehow illegitimate.

Your identity cannot be reduced to a card. No matter who prints it, all of these cards have the same semantic value. A card issued by a government is no more legitimate than any other card produced by any other person.

By deliberately failing to say this, this reporter is re-enforcing the false paradigms of popular ID mythology; that a piece of paper or plastic legitimizes you and can represent you in any way. This is the big (and subtle) lie of this article and all articles like it.

Rigorous checks

Mike Davis, who owns a convenience store in Polzeath in Cornwall, seized 100 fake IDs in just six weeks during the school holidays. “I tell parents I’ve taken a fake ID from their child and they don’t know they’re available on the internet,” he said.

You have no right to seize or confiscate anything from anyone. You are not a police man Mr. Davis; in fact, you are a thief. You stole the property of those people who tried to buy alcohol from you, when all you were legally required to do is to refuse to serve them. People like Mr. Davis are part of the problem. They think it is their right to police the behavior of others; they are a major cause of the decline of Britain.

There is no reason why alcohol should not be sold to anyone who has the money to pay for it. Parents should be able to send their children out to the store to buy a quarter of whiskey if needed. They were able to do this for generations, and there is no difference between the people of today and the people of the past. The idea that alcohol is dangerous and to be feared is what causes the uniquely British form of rowdy alcoholism that plagues this country, evidenced by the innumerable splotches of curry colored vomit that you can find in the streets and doorsteps of every city on a Saturday or Sunday morning. All of them produced by people who are old enough to drink as defined by bad law. The French attitude to alcohol is far more sensible; drinking is just another part of life, not a big deal. But I digress.

But the websites appear to be well known to many young people under the legal drinking age.

Citation? Only BBQ can get away with this sort of lying, and then of course, they say that Bloggers are ‘not real journalists’!

After midnight in Belfast City Centre, one 17 year old said he had been spent several hours drinking in a bar after gaining admission with a fake student card.

This is just before he was about to be shipped out to Afghanistan to murder on behalf of a government that will forbid him to get drunk, but which will put a rifle in his hands to kill.

Plenty of others said they had just turned 18, but had been getting into nightclubs and bars for several years. In Liverpool, it was a similar story.

…and so what? So what if some teenagers have a beer or two? Its not the end of the world, and it certainly is not enough of a pretext to bring in universal compulsory biometric ID cards backed by a central database.

Which is what this low life scumbag article is all about.

“What else are you supposed to do at that age?” said one teenage drinker who started using fake ID when he was 15.

Hmmmm! “What a question”. They always pick the thickest, least representative voice to make some cheap point. This garbage is meaningless, in every way that something can be meaningless.

In both cities, most late night venues seemed to examine ID rigorously. But some clubs reportedly have a reputation as being an easy place for under-18s to have a drink. Door staff at these venues do not seem to be inspecting ID closely, despite many of their customers looking as if they could have been under 18.

They have such a struggle to stay in business with the swingeing taxes, absurd opening regulations, draconian smoking bans etc., they had better let in any and every punter because every penny counts. Just think about it; the immoral smoking ban has caused pubs to install outdoor heating so that the pub can extend its activities outside. These units use up an enormous amount of energy, the majority of which is wasted. The electricity and gas bills for this ‘outdoor heating’ must be a large burden for these beleaguered drinking houses. I feel their pain, and understand perfectly why they are doing what they are doing. In the final analysis, they will be driven out of business by government, who will no doubt in the future launch ‘incentives’ to, “restore the unique pub culture that once thrived in Britain”.

Strict laws

If licensed premises are caught serving under-18s, they face heavy penalties – including losing their license and fines of up to £5,000. The British Beer and Pub Association recommends that its members ask for ID if the customer looks 21 or under. It says that the licensed trade is turning away a million young people a year for being underage or having no ID.

One million people a year, who would be buying, say three pints each at three pounds each, that £9,000,000. And don’t forget the crisps. At one pound per bag.

“In the vast majority of bars and clubs, it’s impossible to get a drink if you’re under 18,” says Paul Smith, chief executive of the Bars, Entertainment and Dance Association.

Is it easier to buy a gun or a drink in the UK?

I wonder.

Five Live Report ordered a fake “driving permit” online and showed it to Inspector David Connery, the head of crime prevention at the Police Service of Northern Ireland. “It really worries me these fakes are out there,” he said, pointing out anyone found using one faces getting a criminal record.

Of course, that is absurd. Many companies produce ID cards that are no more ‘fake’ than the ones you can buy or make yourself with a laminating kit.

In the absence of bad laws that try to conrtol human nature and urges, the rationale behind ID cards disappears and these dirty lying articles disappear with them.

“The more discerning doorman will know it’s false – but on a busy night it could easily fool people. “If you are caught using a false ID getting into licensed premises you will be reported.”

You are in violation!

He also warns anyone “lending” their own genuine ID to underage drinkers could be charged with aiding and abetting an offence.

I think we can safely say that no one is paying attention to these bad laws, just as in the days of prohibition, the majority of people simply broke the law. And we know what the result of THAT was.

The BBC contacted several fake ID firms for an interview, but none responded. The site which comes out on top when you search for fake ID through leading internet search engines carries a warning addressed to the press. “We discourage the attempted use of our cards for the purposes of misrepresentation, both here and in the documentation supplied with our delivered fake ID products,” it states.

Bollocks. Why should they respond to a bunch of habitual liars who are out to misrepresent them and destroy their legitimate businesses? They say that they are producing ‘fakes’ in line with your own fallacious logic, so what more do you want? Of course, they want them out of business and state issued mandatory ID cards to be brutally enforced.

But youth workers and publicans say they are in no doubt that the fake cards are marketed to underage drinkers.

This is just hearsay, and totally irrelevant to the true thrust of this absurd piece of paid for trash ‘journalism’.

They argue that the firms selling the cards are immoral and endangering people’s licenses and livelihoods.

This is a perfect example of ‘in the box’, ‘night is day’ thinking.

Everyone has the right to print whatever they like. Everyone has the right to sell what they print. It is immoral to try and prevent people from printing what they like and selling what they print to whomever they wish. Publicans should not need a license to sell alcohol. The regulation of pubs is what is endangering peoples livelihoods, not the selling of food and drink, which is the very purpose of a pub.

Bill McComb, who runs several alcohol and drugs awareness programmes in Ballymurphy in West Belfast, says: “The companies know that young people are using these cards for an illegal purpose.”

And so? Once again, this is an assertion, not a fact, and even if it were a fact, this is not the point. The point is that the laws controlling alcohol in the UK are immoral, and they are being used as a another pretext in the arsenal of bullshit that is being trotted out to boost the case for total control everyone through the introduction of a totalitarian ID card.

A final point of interest; when you surf to the BBQ page where this rubbish lives, you will notice how it is formatted so that it is almost free of paragraphs. This article is designed for the lowest common denominator. Each lying thought is a single sentence on its own, so that the thickest most asleep reader can easily swallow the fallacies being rammed down their throats.

Five Live Report: The Faking Game will be broadcast at 1930 GMT on Sunday, 16 December. Or download the podcast from the Five Live Report website.

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7144972.stm

We will give that one a miss, thanks.

Bastards.

How to Secure Your Computer, Disks, and Portable Drives

Computer security is hard. Software, computer and network security are all ongoing battles between attacker and defender. And in many cases the attacker has an inherent advantage: He only has to find one network flaw, while the defender has to find and fix every flaw.

Cryptography is an exception. As long as you don’t write your own algorithm, secure encryption is easy. And the defender has an inherent mathematical advantage: Longer keys increase the amount of work the defender has to do linearly, while geometrically increasing the amount of work the attacker has to do.

Unfortunately, cryptography can’t solve most computer-security problems. The one problem cryptography *can* solve is the security of data when it’s not in use. Encrypting files, archives — even entire disks — is easy.

All of this makes it even more amazing that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs in the United Kingdom lost two disks with personal data on 25 million British citizens, including dates of birth, addresses, bank-account information and national insurance numbers. On the one hand, this is no bigger a deal than any of the thousands of other exposures of personal data we’ve read about in recent years — the U.S. Veteran’s Administration loss of personal data of 26 million American veterans is an obvious similar event. But this has turned into Britain’s privacy Chernobyl.

Perhaps encryption isn’t so easy after all, and some people could use a little primer. This is how I protect my laptop.

There are several whole-disk encryption products on the market. I use PGP Disk’s Whole Disk Encryption tool for two reasons. It’s easy, and I trust both the company and the developers to write it securely. (Disclosure: I’m also on PGP Corp.’s Technical Advisory Board.)

Setup only takes a few minutes. After that, the program runs in the background. Everything works like before, and the performance degradation is negligible. Just make sure you choose a secure password — PGP’s encouragement of passphrases makes this much easier — and you’re secure against leaving your laptop in the airport or having it stolen out of your hotel room.

The reason you encrypt your entire disk, and not just key files, is so you don’t have to worry about swap files, temp files, hibernation files, erased files, browser cookies or whatever. You don’t need to enforce a complex policy about which files are important enough to be encrypted. And you have an easy answer to your boss or to the press if the computer is stolen: no problem; the laptop is encrypted.

PGP Disk can also encrypt external disks, which means you can also secure that USB memory device you’ve been using to transfer data from computer to computer. When I travel, I use a portable USB drive for backup. Those devices are getting physically smaller — but larger in capacity — every year, and by encrypting I don’t have to worry about losing them.

I recommend one more complication. Whole-disk encryption means that anyone at your computer has access to everything: someone at your unattended computer, a Trojan that infected your computer and so on. To deal with these and similar threats I recommend a two-tier encryption strategy. Encrypt anything you don’t need access to regularly — archived documents, old e-mail, whatever — separately, with a different password. I like to use PGP Disk’s encrypted zip files, because it also makes secure backup easier (and lets you secure those files before you burn them on a DVD and mail them across the country), but you can also use the program’s virtual-encrypted-disk feature to create a separately encrypted volume. Both options are easy to set up and use.

There are still two scenarios you aren’t secure against, though. You’re not secure against someone snatching your laptop out of your hands as you’re typing away at the local coffee shop. And you’re not secure against the authorities telling you to decrypt your data for them.

The latter threat is becoming more real. I have long been worried that someday, at a border crossing, a customs official will open my laptop and ask me to type in my password. Of course I could refuse, but the consequences might be severe — and permanent. And some countries — the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia — have passed laws giving police the authority to demand that you divulge your passwords and encryption keys.

To defend against both of these threats, minimize the amount of data on your laptop. Do you really need 10 years of old e-mails? Does everyone in the company really need to carry around the entire customer database? One of the most incredible things about the Revenue & Customs story is that a low-level government employee mailed a copy of the entire national child database to the National Audit Office in London. Did he have to? Doubtful. The best defense against data loss is to not have the data in the first place.

Failing that, you can try to convince the authorities that you don’t have the encryption key. This works better if it’s a zipped archive than the whole disk. You can argue that you’re transporting the files for your boss, or that you forgot the key long ago. Make sure the time stamp on the files matches your claim, though.

There are other encryption programs out there. If you’re a Windows Vista user, you might consider BitLocker. This program, embedded in the operating system, also encrypts the computer’s entire drive. But it only works on the C: drive, so it won’t help with external disks or USB tokens. And it can’t be used to make encrypted zip files. But it’s easy to use, and it’s free. And many people like the open-source and free program, TrueCrypt. I know nothing about it.

This essay previously appeared on Wired.com.

Why was the UK event such a big deal? Certainly the scope: 40% of the British population. Also the data: bank account details; plus information about children. There’s already a larger debate on the issue of a database on kids that this feeds into. And it’s a demonstration of government incompetence (think Hurricane Katrina). In any case, this issue isn’t going away anytime soon. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologized. The head of the Revenue and Customs office has resigned. More fallout is probably coming.

[…]

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0712.html

UK’s privacy Chernobyl:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2910705.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7104945.stm
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,,2214566,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2910635.ece
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/21/response_data_breach/

U.S. VA privacy breach:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/05/70961

PGP Disk:
http://www.pgp.com/products/wholediskencryption/

Choosing a secure password:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/choosing_secure.html
http://www.iusmentis.com/security/passphrasefaq/

Risks of losing small memory devices:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/07/risks_of_losing.html

Laptop snatching:
http://tinyurl.com/fszeh

TrueCrypt:
http://www.truecrypt.org/

Of course, we now know that authorities cannot tell you to decrypt your data for them in the USA. If you insist on working for and in fascist countries or countries with fascist legislation like the United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia, then you must expect that your rights disappear the moment the tires of the airplane touch the landing strip in these places, and that you may be subject to a decryption order. Much better to carry a blank laptop with you and then log into your system over an encrypted link rather than carry fully loaded email clients with you.

You can fully expect all of these bad laws to be dropped once businessmen from the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries get their laptops copied wholesale, or when people stop doing business with them out of principle…ummmm probably not going to happen, right?

Avid readers of BLOGDIAL will remember the utter nonsense of the Sudanese government stealing laptops:

The government of Sudan started seizing and quarantining laptop computers for inspection last week, ostensibly to stem the import of pornography and seditious material.

remember now?

Apparently it occurred to government officials that they didn’t understand what was in the devices and that the devices might be the conveyance for objectionable material.

A beautifully understated assessment :)

The immediate effect of the quarantines and data inspections is sure to be a dampening of business interest in an already risk-fraught environment. Over the long term, however, silly rules regarding technology tend to be corrected by individuals’ use of even more advanced technology. Governments rarely win this sort of oneupsmanship.

And so on:

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=453

I have been encouraging the adoption of PGP/GPG for ages. The tools to use it are now as easy as switching a light on and off, even if the underlying concepts remain impenetrable to all but people with A-Level maths. If you have the time and the need for it, you can use it with ease. It is possible to do everything you need to do without it, but do not complain that people are reading your email; those complaints are what is unacceptable today.

There has never been a time in man’s history where you could communicate in complete, guaranteed privacy over any distance. No surveillance system can break into properly deployed PGP/GPG communications. All those who complain about the government monitoring their email but who do not use PGP/GPG do not get and cannot expect any sympathy.

You have an umbrella, yet you prefer to get soaked to the skin when it rains.

You have fire, but you choose not to light it and to stay damp and wet.

That is called STUPIDITY and there are no two ways about it.

Text of article: http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html

A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that prosecutors can’t force a criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier ruled that a man charged with transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the passphrase to prosecutors. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to avoid self-incrimination.

Niedermeier tossed out a grand jury’s subpoena that directed Sebastien Boucher to provide “any passwords” used with the Alienware laptop. “Compelling Boucher to enter the password forces him to produce evidence that could be used to incriminate him,” the judge wrote in an order dated November 29 that went unnoticed until this week. “Producing the password, as if it were a key to a locked container, forces Boucher to produce the contents of his laptop.”

Link to court opinion: http://www.volokh.com/files/Boucher.pdf

Orin Kerr’s this-ruling-is-wrong post: http://volokh.com/posts/1197670606.shtml

Link to Michael Froomkin’s old law review article touching on this: http://osaka.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/seminar/papers/anon/intlaw_paper.html

The most basic principles of a free country make RIPA bad law.

This is another example of why america was such a great country and why its Founding Fathers are so rightly revered; its constitution was so perfectly written that its provisions work on technologies and scenarios two hundred and thirty years after it was devised.

I can imagine a scenario where an american with a laptop containing a PGP encrypted volume ‘invokes The 5th’ somewhere in the world and the out of jurisdiction court accepting this – they accept american jurisdiction for everything else, like carting people off to torture prisons, so why not the Fifth Amendment?

Ladies and gentlemen…

This is a REAL jacket that is being seen in all the big cities.

It’s like something straight out of a 2000AD street scene….astonishing; true dystopian fashion, sci-fi reality leaking into now…or has ‘the future’ arrived? If so, then what on earth comes next?

And let’s not forget that wearing a mask in public is illegal in some countries; how long do you think it will be before some jackass somewhere calls for these hoodies to be outlawed?

Whilst trawling around for a suitable image to vividly demonstrate this hoodie in a sci-fi context, I cam across this astonishing image:

I do believe that is a photo of Patti Smith, next to Jerry Cornelius as drawn by Moebius!

Snarfed from here.

Parisians…’they love Patti Smith’ It’s true!

This article from ‘less than toilet paper’ rag Newsweek written by ‘Gretel C. Kovach’ is causing a stir on the internets.

It is a blantant (yes, ‘blantant’) propaganda hit piece against Ron Paul, but what Newsweek and Gretel C. Kovach did not count on is the fact that everyone is now on the internets, and if you lie, you will be caught out the moment you press ‘publish’.

Here is a sample of some of the comments on this scandalous piece of yellow journalism and pathetic low brow lying:

Posted By: tempnewsweeker @ 12/08/2007 10:47:45

Comment: Thank you. I have not heard anything about this, but the facts in the article seemed to lend credibility to the fact that “something” was being planned, yet the author concluded otherwise. I am glad to know I am not the only American who can still add 2 + 2 and get 4. If it were not for bloggers, we would not get any real news.

Posted By: litlbitione @ 12/01/2007 8:48:11 PM

Comment: I get really tired of being called names. I’m a 61 year old grandmother, a registered nurse and I’m not a conspiracy wacko. I happen to like Ron Paul and the ideas he represents. I contribute to his campaign. I’m old enough to remember previous snow jobs by the government and have no doubt that they continue. I think the media frequently does the public a disservice. Finally, I think Dr. Paul deserves a bit more respect having served in Nam and having been a doctor. He’s no dummy and his supporters are smart people.

Posted By: Archiphage @ 12/01/2007 8:59:27 PM

Comment: No wonder no one reads Newsweek anymore:
——————
Trans-Texas Corridor- Because there are issues of confiscation of private land, State and National sovereignty and other similar concerns, we urge the repeal of the Trans-Texas Corridor legislation.
—————————————————–
Quote from wacko-conspiracy-theory document called Texas GOP 2006 Party Platform (page 10) http://www.texasgop.org/site/DocServer/2006_Plat_with_TOC_2.pdf?docID=2022
Get a clue, Newsweek!

Posted By: barracuda_trader @ 12/01/2007 9:33:46 PM

Comment: Gretel, do your homework. Is Judicial Watch a conspiracy nut house too?

Judicial Watch
http://www.judicialwatch.org/SPP.shtml
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_Prosperity_Partnership_of_North_America#_note-3
Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America
http://www.spp.gov/
http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/20025142045298118.htm
http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/reports/200251420452981182.pdf
—
You’re not only ignorant on the matters you discuss, you’re also arrogant – thinking you know – when you don’t.
Hey BREAKING NEWS: Rudy Giuliani’s law firm represents Cintra-Zachry. Rudy makes millions off of selling America’s infrastructure to other countries. Talk about “prickley”.
FYI Gretel… “Terror” IS the real conspiracy. Follow the money honey.
TSA – Do you fly”
Homeland Security – Not really
REAL ID – “Papers Please”
Crashing US DOLLAR – Go look at a chart.
Google the AMERO – the new currency that will be introduced as our “solution” when Bernanke et al can’t stop the markets from convulsing with rate cuts anymore. The US DOLLAR is already well below it’s all time low and has been dropping further for weeks! Wall street already knows about it. Do you?

Posted By: EdBrown2008 @ 12/01/2007 9:25:00 PM

Comment: Kovach, you are either obtuse or just a plain idiot. You should be a rep. for Chewlies Gum.

And so on.

The last two comments are interesting; when someone lies like this, I am interested in looking at their faces. A quick google of this monster reveals that she used to write for the Dallas Morning News. I doubt that she would not have heard about the Superhigway and the legislation against it and the outrage over it, working for a news organization based in Dallas Texas.

We also learn that this swine:

Gretel C. Kovach was stationed in Baghdad, Iraq, from December 2004 through January 2005 as a reporter for The Dallas Morning News. She covered the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas. E-mail her at gkovach@dallasnews.com.

Interesting ay? This person was embedded in Iraq, spewing out propaganda for the illegal invasion and colonization.

When you see the sort of pure evil garbage she has been writing it comes as no surprise that she is behind this hit piece.

This bird is a Mockingbird, plain and simple.

It is important to remember that there are evil journalists out there in vast numbers, and the propaganda war that is being waged on the world population uses these corrupt people to dispense lies. If it were not for these dishonest writers, the evil ones would not be able to wage an info war against us at all.

Do not be surprised at Newsweek publishing this story; compliant and corrupt publishers are as needed by the enemy as the scumbag journalists who fill their columns with bile.

What we MUST do is be vigilant, use the internets, and consistently short circuit the lines of these venal liars.

And believe me, it is working.

This is why Tucker Carlson says on air that he is frightened about the “persistence of these conspiracy theories”. On this subject, what can we make of a man who says, “I don’t want to know these kind of facts about america”; a man who refuses to face the truth, an ostrich posturer, a coward.

These journalist and the people who command them are in the extreme minority, and their power and influence has been effectively swept away by the internets. The lies they publish are the death rattles of their positions and the shocked expression on their faces are the looks of men who see death staring at them in the face. Bill Maher’s attack on hecklers in his studio audience are the act of a man in the trenches about to be overrun leaping up to be mown down.

They have LOST.

This week we launched The NO2ID Pledge – a way for people to personally and publicly declare that they will refuse to comply with the government’s ID scheme. It says:

I solemnly and publicly promise that:

• I shall not register for a national identity card
• I shall not supply personal details or fingerprints to a National Identity Register
• I shall not apply for any document or service if joining the National Identity Register is a condition of obtaining it
• I shall not co-operate with any Identity and Passport Service interview concerning my identity.

I also promise by my example to encourage others to do the same.

The pledge is an act of *pre-emptive* resistance and is, as such, entirely legal. It’s something positive that you can do NOW. In fact, there’s not much ID law to break at present – most of the powers in the Identity Cards Act 2006 have yet to be brought into force. The government certainly hasn’t made it illegal to declare you’ll refuse to go along with its scheme.

The ID scheme is like a vampire. It has no life of its own, and thrives only if it feeds.

There is its weakness. We, collectively, can choose to starve the Identity and Passport Service. It only works smoothly if few are prepared to face some inconvenience to resist. It only works at all if a large majority of the population can be hypnotised into thinking that it is just routine, no big deal. If enough of us refuse to be bled willingly, the beast will either starve or show its fangs.

The NO2ID Pledge will lead to civil disobedience only if the government fails to see sense and scrap its monstrous ID scheme. The polls have long said millions will not submit to being numbered like cattle. Is the government really going to risk trying to make them beg to be branded?

To make pledging straightforward we have created The NO2ID Pledge certificate, for you to fill out and sign in front of a witness. You can find out more and download certificates from http://www.no2id.net/pledge/

Please don’t just print one copy… print five… or fifty and pass them on to people who you think might also pledge. The idea is to spread The NO2ID Pledge as far and as wide as possible.

Anyone can do it. Anyone can help others do it. And the more who do, the easier it is.

Note: This is a new pledge, if you signed our previous PledgeBank “refuse” pledge then you can still make this pledge.

Referring back to this post.